Into the Desert I Go

I’m off for a long awaited trip to the desert. I need this so much I could spit. Aren’t male figures of speech so delightfully colourful? I will return next week sometime. Well, someone will return, hopefully not the stressed out person I am now, I’m leaving him in the desert. Somewhere near this old mining structure. I slept on top of it in the 1970s, it was connected to the hill then. It got kind of windy during the night so the two friends who were with me wimped out and retreated to the tunnel we were camped in. It was a nice comfy tunnel. I’ll take lots of pictures on my trip and will post any interesting ones when I return.

I’m going to be making more posts on the dripping misogyny the Christian right seems to have decided to self-immolate itself with. At this point I’m hoping that the Republicans will make “legitimate rape” part of their party platform, because some of these folks don’t seem to realize just how far afield they have strayed from anything resembling common humanity. Let alone Jesus’s teachings. For the record, anyone who would deny a woman who was impregnated by a rapist an abortion is sick in the head. Let me repeat that, anyone who would deny a woman who was impregnated by a rapist an abortion is sick in the head. The people people who claim that such is justified are people who are revealing their true colours. And they are not baby lovers, they are people who think women are no more than breeding sows whose only purpose in life is to crank out babies. This is not a pro-life position, this is “I am a medieval fuck who thinks all women are sluts who should be punished when they they get pregnant” position. Yes, gentle reader, I feel rather strongly about this.

Hopefully the US won’t invade Syria while I’m out in the desert. Still, it would mean plenty of blog fodder when I get back. Hopefully the US won’t invade Syria ever, but I’m not optimistic on that score. Invading countries is what we do. Then we pretend to nation build before going on to wrecking the next country. Kinda like Bain Capital but on a grander scale. I’m not very optimistic about the state of the world, but long time readers know that. Heck, even short time readers can glean that from a post or two. I’m back to thinking that a major regional war is in the offing in the Middle east, even a world war is possible at this point. Expect posts on that when I return.

I’ll be posting more on global warming as well. It’s been a few years since my last foray into that false scientific controversy. I tend to avoid false controversies, like that over Evolution or the Big Bang, because there’s almost no point. Those who reject science generally aren’t terribly amenable to debate on same. Still, fun to be had. And one never knows, I might learn something. It’s been known to happen. There’s also posts on Venus and the various probes planned for it. Mars has been getting all the luvin lately, but Venus is due for some strokes.

And that’s that, time to pack and get the flock out of here. I’ll be impressed if anyone can identity the location in the picture. It’s in Nevada near a ghost town. The image is being used legally as it is not being used for profit. Credit and copyright: OldBlueWebDesigns.com

9 Responses

What is really scary about Akin is that he is on the Science Committee in Congress. How can a person be a Republican anymore and have any say on anything scientific? Isn’t that anathema to any Republican? As to Christian teachings, the constitution isn’t the only thing they are out to destroy, they have trashed about everything Jesus ever supposedly stood for.
I am a woman and they scare the hell out of me. And the women in Oklahoma that support them so fiercely scare the hell out of me.
But what scares me most is that probably half of the people who are eligible to vote don’t know who Paul Ryan is or what his agenda is. They don’t know that the Republicans have control of the House. They certainly don’t know that the SCOTUS is controlled by right wing appointments. If there ever was a case of ignorance predominating a country that has been brain washed to believe that the only important things in life have a monetary value and that chatting on cell phones is with friends is the end all and be all of happiness, we are living in it. The real point being that the information is there for everyone to not be ignorant and yet they choose to be so.

I agree with you that a world war is a distinct possibility. Things are lining up in a roughly similar fashion as they did in 1914, except China is in the position the US was and they didn’t have nuclear weapons.
My fear is that just as everyone old enough can seperate their lives into pre and post 9-11 terms, our lives will be seperated into pre and post nuclear war… If we’re still alive, that is.

Hi Doug,
Apropos of the picture, you said the structure was once connected to the hill? What was it’s purpose originally? How did the hill erode so much in thirty some years? Is the tunnel still there?

The hill (a tailing pile actually) didn’t erode, there was a ramp connecting it to the right. Off to the right in the picture was the opening to a major gold mine. This thing was basically a hopper, ore from the mine would be dumped in from the top, to be loaded into wagons at he bottom to be carried to a nearby stamp mill for further processing. This was at the site of the Jenny Lee mine (long abandoned) above the town of Vernon (also long abandoned/moved.) It’s remarkable this structure was still here, in the seventies there were still several buildings and an even larger structure for hauling ore carts out of the mine, all since destroyed by vandals. —Doug